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[Caro]

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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

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Dem leaders to sign off on bill funding Iraq war today before expected veto
Congressional leaders today will put an exclamation point on their political showdown with President Bush on Iraq spending, staging a signing event to send their Iraq supplemental bill to the White House. The ceremony will come four years to the day after Bush stood in front of a “Mission Accomplished” sign and declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq. It will also come a day after White House officials complained about how long it has taken to go through the steps needed to formally send the bill to President Bush’s desk for a veto.

Off the Wahl

The World

Iraq interior ministry says Qaeda kingpin dead
Iraqi officials believe the alleged leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, has been killed in an internal struggle within the militant group, the interior ministry said Tuesday.
How many times has this guy been killed? Could it be coincidence that this announcement was made on the fourth anniversary of Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” stunt? —Caro

Mortar rounds slam Baghdad's Green Zone
BAGHDAD - Mortar rounds slammed into the U.S.-controlled Green Zone on Tuesday, with one striking within 100 yards of the Iraqi prime minister's offices, a government official said. No casualties were reported.

Olmert defies calls to resign
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faced an onslaught of calls for his resignation and the first cracks in his coalition Tuesday following a government probe's harsh criticism of his handling of last summer's Lebanon war.

Turkish police, May Day protesters clash
ISTANBUL, Turkey - Turkish police charged into crowds of leftist protesters marking the anniversary of a deadly May Day rally in Istanbul on Tuesday, spraying tear gas and kicking and clubbing demonstrators as they fled.

Uganda commander: no Somalia victory yet
MOGADISHU, Somalia - A top Ugandan army commander cautioned Monday against declaring victory over Somali insurgents, while hundreds of people streamed back to the war-ravaged capital two days after the government said Islamic fighters had been defeated.

Sudan vows to crush Darfur rebels after killing
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - The Sudanese armed forces vowed on Monday to "crush" a coalition of rebel groups in Darfur for killing an officer whose helicopter had landed in north Darfur after a technical failure.

The Nation

Price tag for war in Iraq on track to top $500 billion
The bitter fight over the latest Iraq spending bill has all but obscured a sobering fact: The war will soon cost more than $500 billion. That's about ten times more than the Bush administration anticipated before the war started four years ago.

Secret Order By Gonzales Delegated Extraordinary Powers To Aides
The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed.

A Bush appointee goes after Rove
Prosecutor Scott J. Bloch, a committed conservative, is turning heads with his investigation of the administration's political operation, which is headed by Karl Rove.

Escort-Service Owner Says Washington Clients May Be Named to Aid Defense
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, accused of running a Washington prostitution ring for 13 years, apologized to a former deputy secretary of state for revealing he was a client and said more names may be disclosed to help her defend against criminal charges.

Wolfowitz Resignation Deal in the Works
(A)llegedly on June 1st, Wolfowitz becomes eligible for some large financial bonus -- for performance and time on the job. One estimate puts this figure at about $400,000. Wolfowitz wants to make sure those funds are credited to his private bank account before saying farewell to an institution that has come to despise him.

Lending Problems Seen in 2001
Documents, interviews reveal that Bush aides killed proposal to reign in student loan industry.

Media

Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Inhofe: Media invented WMD excuse for Iraq invasion.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) on Friday: “Inhofe, speaking to the press before Cheney’s arrival, lambasted Democrats for Thursday’s Senate vote to begin withdrawal from Iraq by Oct. 1 and the press for “mischaracterizing” the reasons for U.S. involvement. ‘The whole idea of weapons of mass destruction was never the issue, yet they keep trying to bring this up,’ Inhofe said… ‘The media made that the issue because they knew Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction.’”

TAKE ME TO YOUR MORAL LEADER
Brian Williams, expensively dressed, started things off at Thursday’s debate with a question for Candidate Clinton. Despite his excellent sense of humor, we’ve sometimes found the handsome anchor to be a bit of a public lightweight… What follows is the text of his full first question… “WILLIAMS (actual opening question): Senator Clinton, your party's leader in the United States Senate, Harry Reid, recently said the war in Iraq is lost. A letter to today's USA Today calls his comments "treasonous" and says if General Patton were alive today, Patton would wipe his boots with Senator Reid. Do you agree with the position of your leader in the Senate?” Good God! Nothing too “loaded” about that question! And no, we really aren’t making this up.

After attacking Reid over war "is lost" comment, Broder "doubtful" Iraq victory is possible
On the April 30 edition of XM Radio's The Bob Edwards Show, Washington Post columnist David Broder asserted that it was "really doubtful" President Bush would be able "to salvage something that would look like a victory in Iraq." Broder made this statement four days after he attacked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) for what he called Reid's "ineptitude," because of, as he wrote in his April 26 Post column, Reid's assertion that the Iraq war "is lost."

Once again, Wash. Times quoted GOP talking points to smear Pelosi
A Washington Times article reported that Nancy Pelosi "did not attend the briefing" that Gen. David Petraeus delivered on Capitol Hill but did not note that Pelosi's staff reportedly said that the speaker had "requested a one-on-one meeting with Petraeus but that could not be worked out," and that Pelosi and Petraeus had spoken on the phone for 30 minutes.

GMA's Cuomo let Snow claim unchallenged that "there's been no attempt to try to link Saddam Hussein to September 11"
On the April 30 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, co-anchor Chris Cuomo did not challenge White House Press Secretary Tony Snow's claim that "there's been no attempt to try to link Saddam Hussein to September 11." As Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted …, President Bush and other administration officials have frequently claimed a connection between Saddam and the September 11 attacks, including the specific assertion of such a link in a letter to Congress at the start of the war.

"Insurers still think private enterprise will improve health care"
That's what the Wall Street Journal told its readers today. That's pretty good reporting if the the WSJ reporters can tell us what insurers really think. Most of us just have to rely on what they say. Of course, it is not surprising that insurers say that paying billions of extra dollars each year to have Medicare beneficiaries covered by private insuers rather than the traditional Medicare program improves their care. That certainly sounds better than saying that this extra cost increases insurance company profits.

Technology & Science

AT&T gives Net phone service a new push
AT&T is breaking the long cease-fire among big local phone companies with a renewed push for its Internet phone service in two regions.

Natural Viagra: Spider Bite Causes Erection
WASHINGTON — A Brazilian spider delivers more than a painful bite that sends most victims to the hospital. Its venom stimulates an hours-long erection. Now scientists have figured out the chemical that seems to be responsible for the penis boost.

Apes Point to Origins of Human Language
Humans might have been signing long before they were speaking.

New explanation for greatest cosmic blasts
Astronomers think gamma-ray bursts are powered by black holes, but how is the energy of a star's collapse converted into radiation? A fresh theory adds to the scientific debate.

Environment

Bush, EU leaders deadlocked on climate change
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush and visiting European leaders agreed Monday to define global warming as a serious problem requiring "urgent" action, but were deadlocked on what concrete remedies to apply.

Arctic Sea Ice Melting Faster Than Predicted
Arctic sea ice is melting at a significantly faster rate than projected by even the most advanced computer models, a new study concludes. "While the ice is disappearing faster than the computer models indicate, both observations and the models point in the same direction: The Arctic is losing ice at an increasingly rapid pace and the impact of greenhouse gases is growing," said study team member Marika Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

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